Thinking and Concepts Thinking Aka Cognition cid 127 Metacognition cid 127 Mental Images Concepts Problem Solving cid 127 Mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is organizing and attempting to understand and or communicate info to others cid 127 Mental representations that stand for objects or events and have a picture like quality Ideas that represent a class or category of objects events or activities Process of cognition that occurs when a goal must be reached by thinking and behaving in certain ways Trial and Error mechanical solution One possible solution after another is tried until a successful one is found EX Doing a puzzle and can t find the right piece so you decide to try every piece until you find the right one Algorithms Very specific step by step procedures for solving certain types of problems EX Math problems Insight Sudden perception of a solution to a problem Heuristics Types of Heuristics of that category to think of related examples Problem Solving Barriers An educated guess based on prior experiences that helps narrow down the possible solutions for a problem Aka rule of thumb Representative Heuristic Assumption that any object or person sharing characteristics with the members of a particular category is also a member Availability Heuristic Estimating the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to recall relevant info from memory or how easy it is EX If I were to ask you how many accidents do you think occur on Burbank after they just witnessed an accident there odds are people would say that accidents happen frequently there On the other hand if you had never witnessed one there you may say that there are rarely any accidents Functional Fixedness A block to problem solving that comes from thinking about objects in terms of only their typical functions EX The string problem How do you tie two strings together if you cannot reach them both at the same time Use the wrench to apply weight to the other string so you can swing it and be able to grab it If you cannot think of any way to use the wrench because you only are able to view the wrench as doing its normal job you are experiencing functional fixedness Not the best example but you get the idea cid 127 Mental Set The tendency to persist in using a problem solving patterns that have worked in the past Conformation Bias The tendency to search for evidence that fits one s beliefs while ignoring any evidence that does not fit those beliefs EX Do this when we have a certain belief not just in problem solving Provide evidence for one side but ignore evidence for the other side or choose not to believe facts provided for the other side Attention Selective Attention The process that at a given moment enhances some info and inhibits other info EX The video about the gorilla running through the group of people passing the ball that are wearing either a white or black shirt Usually he is not noticed because people are told to be counting how many times a person in a white shirt passes the ball so they don t pay attention to him The Stroop Task Reading what color is written on the screen that may or may not be colored with its correct color EX The word red colored blue EX Trying to pay attention to one voice in a room full of voices the Cocktail Party Effect The brain is trying to make sense of the noise it is hearing The brain is really good at doing this How do we study selection attention cid 127 Working Memory Attentional Control Distractors Visual Auditory cid 127 Multitasking EX Texting and driving Put participants in a driving simulator and had them text or talk on the phone Participants were judged on cid 127 Maintaining acceptable speed If they had any abrupt moments of acceleration or braking cid 127 Whether they could stay in their lane or if they swayed from side to side in their lane Showed signs of distracted driving especially lane veering Distracted driving continued 3 35 seconds after they finished driving 3 35 seconds equals 200 feet if going 40 MPH Those who multi task on a regular basis are actually worst at it than those who rarely do it They have difficulties filtering out irrelevant info cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 Become incapable of focusing on just one thing cid 127 What is multitasking Actually task switching Language Language and Cognition Every time we switch tasks we have to reorient and that takes time Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis Thought processes and concepts are controlled by language Cognitive Universalism Concepts are universal and influence the development of language Clicker Q Do you believe that at least some species of animals have what could be called a language A Opinion Question Yes System for combining symbols such as words so that an unlimited number of meaningful statements can be made for the purpose of communicating cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127
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